Watching films through the years have you notice and wonder how some so called talent get to be popular Take a overrated bad actor like Harrison ford. Get's stuck in a few very popular movies yet can't act out of a paper bag. Any comments on this joke of an actor.

Watching films through the years have you notice and wonder how some so called talent get to be popular Take a overrated bad actor like Harrison ford. Get's stuck in a few very popular movies yet can't act out of a paper bag. Any comments on this joke of an actor.

Say what you want, there's no other actor who can "smolder" like Harrison Ford.

He may not be Brando or Pacino, but I've enjoyed him in almost everything I've seen him in. He entertains, and that's why he's been a highly successful, A-list star for much of his career. He's also a pretty good carpenter, or so I hear, and a thoughtful man. Works for me.

I never used to think this becuase his performances in early movies, Graffitti, the first 2 Star Wars films, Indy and even small roles like The Conversation and Apocolypse Now were pretty damn solid. Ok neither Solo nor Indy demanded great thespian skills but he delivered those roles with a deft lightness instead of turning them into the charactures they so easily could have been.

But the older he gets the worse he becomes. For any doubters, check out such rubbish as Firewall or the risible Cowboys and Aliens where he simply phoned his wooden performances in. Also, contrast his dull, uncharismatic performance in Morning Glory against the triumph that was Working Girl.

Nowadays he just comes across as a by-the-numbers actor capable of nothing more than two tone performances. He just looks bored in the majority of his recent movies. Never used to be this way

I'm afraid I disagree with you, dan. I think Ford is a terrific and very underrated actor. With just the slightest change in facial expression, he can express so many things. One example I always think of is the end of CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER, when he's been rescued and sitting in the helicopter....you can read relief, remorse, anger and so many other things in his face at that point. He's excellent at that kind of stuff.

Harsh statement and I doubt you'll find many people agreeing with you Dan. My favorite performance of Harrison Ford is in "The Fugitive" alongside lots of other great actors (the only one I didn't care for was Julianne Moore's and I'm glad she didn't get a bigger part).

Thanks, Sigerson, for reminding us of that great story. Although I've not seen that particular movie, Curtis himself remembered that brief moment onscreen, and said that he got one of the best pieces of direction be'd ever gotten just before the cameras rolled. The director went up to Curtis and whispered, "All you care about is getting the tip."

Quite possibility, I'm thinking, the Universal exec saw in Curtis both a star and a delivery boy.

Ford’s first opportunity to act without any safety net is in Peter Weir’s neglected “The Mosquito Coast.” As the bespectacled, deglamorized Allie Fox, novelist Paul Theroux’s adventurer-inventor who departs an America he believes will be destroyed in an apocalyptic war to settle in Central America, Ford is a “Robinson Crusoe” wearing a “Lord of the Flies” cap. He pioneers his new world ingeniously, but soon the self-fulfilling doom generated by his festering paranoia overwhelms. That the story’s fable is one of the reasons Ford succeeds here: chronologically he had been out of the real world for so long as Lucas-Spielberg movie heroes, and an improbable love interest for that Amazon in Weir’s “Witness,” that it seems inevitable, if not natural, for him to eventually go mad. Allie’s not a pleasant character, and by end, he’s thoroughly dislikable; you wish Weir had used Theroux’s bloody finish — vultures feasting on the dead body. This may be why the public rejected the movie — it didn’t want to see their macho champion self-destruct. Ford’s wife is played by Helen Mirren.

The best actors never look like they're acting. Ford becomes every character he plays, and he does so with honesty and skill. He's had some off performances when it was obvious he didn't care (Return of the Jedi, for example), but anyone who says he's not good at his job has no clue what acting entails. Have a nice day.

I think to best appreaciate Ford - although I admit he was working with great scripts and directors at his height - compare him to the rubbish that pass as leading men these days! Channing Tatum!!! Taylor Kitsch!!! Ryan Reynolds!!! Ford was a TITAN by comparison.

I will be less harsh, but I am disappointed with his acting career. Early on I saw the beginnings of a great actor. He had it in him. But he turned into a "movie star" which meant from that point forward he just "read" the script. Movie Stars as a whole are the worst actors, because they are just playing themselves. Its one reason I find so many mainstream films incredibly boring.

For me it seemed his career was burned out after the 90s, with movies like "Hollywood Homicide", "Firewall" and then of course the mediocre 'Crystal Skull' and 'Cowboys VS Aliens' hyped blockbusters. He's become a geezer for a while now and the impression I get is he doesn't seem to care that much about doing movies anymore and why should he? He has his share of film classics and I'd rather see him do a goofy Jimmy Kimmel cameo than a straight to video borefest.

I think I can count the number of good post-Fugitive performances by Ford using one finger. He was the cinematic hero of my childhood (Han Solo and Indiana Jones...name another actor who portrayed two iconic screen heroes simultaneously), but he's ossified over the past two decades into a humorless, mumbling, senile grump. I'd like to think Ford has some more good performances left in him (I've heard good things about his work in 42), but he's made enough money at this point that he really doesn't seem to give a shit anymore. He actually seemed fully-awake and engaged in Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, but the film let him down.

I think to best appreaciate Ford - although I admit he was working with great scripts and directors at his height - compare him to the rubbish that pass as leading men these days! Channing Tatum!!! Taylor Kitsch!!! Ryan Reynolds!!! Ford was a TITAN by comparison. - Vermithrax Pejorative

But he turned into a "movie star" which meant from that point forward he just "read" the script. Movie Stars as a whole are the worst actors, because they are just playing themselves. Its one reason I find so many mainstream films incredibly boring. - Solium

I think you’ve both nailed it. At the same time I wonder how many “Stars” also feel trapped by their fame. They know what their fans expect (demand) of them in movie roles and may be afraid to take risks as far as characters they portray. Balance that with the temptation to ride the gravy train in roles just for easy money.

I thought his peak of roles as a rascal was Han in “Empire”, while the “smoldering” (good call, Dana), desperation-bubbling-beneath-the-surface role, at which he excels, peaked in “Presumed Innocent” and “The Fugitive”.